


Pretend

by tetskuroo



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Happy Ending, I promise it's not super sad just like kinda super sad, Kei hates himself, Kuroo is trying to make everything better, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 09:31:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7355494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tetskuroo/pseuds/tetskuroo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kei was relieved when they finally start dating because Tetsurou is the one person he doesn't have to pretend around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretend

**Author's Note:**

> I finally decided to try and write for my OTP and I make it sad.   
> I've just been feeling so mentally shitty lately, and I headcannon Tsukki with depression so this was like so easy for me to write????   
> Idk I hope you all enjoy hope no tears are shed.

Kei knew he didn't really deserve to be sad - he had a nice life, complete with a family that cared about him, the means to achieving a higher education, and a boyfried that he loved with all of his heart -, but knowing he shouldn't be sad and not being sad were two very, very different things.

He tried to be happy - he reminded himself of the good things in life, called his mom and brother every chance he got or made sure to spend time with his friends or boyfriend when he was feeling especially down. He took his medication as needed and listened to his favorite songs, and sometimes it all worked. Sometimes he was okay after doing these things - not perfect, but okay.

But sometimes he couldn't help it, and he'd find himself curled up, sad and mad for no reason at all, unable to feel better no matter what he did. Mad at himself over insignificant things - accidently spilling something, making a mistake on an assignment, forgetting to wash the dishes - and, what's worse, is that sometimes he gets so mad and sad that he took his feelings out on Tetsurou, the best boyfriend in the world. Those days plagued him, made him feel stupid and worthless because god he really didn't deserve to be sad, to be mad - he didn't have a reason.

He'd been like this forever, too, and he still hadn't found a way to deal with it.

When he was younger his mother brought him to the doctor, and they prescribed him pills, but they didn't work - they left a nasty feeling in his throat and made him sick to his stomach for the first month, and after the first month he was just even more sad than he was before.

(All the pills after that did the same thing, and when he was thirteen his mother finally decided to stop trying.)

After that, it was just a lot of pretending - Kei pretending he wasn't depressed, Kei's mother pretending nothing was wrong, Akiteru pretending that he hadn't made it worse with his lying. Everything in their home was fake - the smiles, the laughs, the happy conversations at dinner. The fakeness of it all made it Kei more sick than the pills, which was pretty hard to believe, but he didn't tell his mother - she'd just pretend it was okay.

(Kei is pretty sure that his mother is where he and Akiteru got their wonderful abilities to pretend - she made pretending that everything was okay look like a casual walk in the park.)

But then, in his first year of high school, Kei met Tetsurou, and everything seemed to change. Before Tetsurou, Tadashi was the only person that Kei feel as much as he could. Tadashi was the only person that Kei felt comfortable around, felt he could be real around - he never had to pretend. Tadashi accepted his best friend for who he was, snarky comebacks and harsh glares or wet eyes and runny nose, and nothing was going to change that - they had been and would be friends forever.

With Tetsurou it was different, though. Tadashi was timid when Kei was at his worst, always stepping like he was on eggshells, watching his words, not wanting to piss Kei off at all, afraid of making it all worse. Tetsurou didn't worry - he knew what it was like to struggle with negative thoughts, had a lot of practice from Kenma, and he knew that it was best to let people feel, to let them express their emotions.

And with Tetsurou, Kei could do just that.

Tetsurou didn't judge him; Kei knew that he could express his emotions - negative and positive, scary and sad - to Tetsurou and his boyfriend wouldn't judge him at all. No matter how depressing, how scary his thoughts could be, Tetsurou listened to them and gave Kei feedback. Things he'd learned from his studies in psychology, tips he'd googled on how to help distract, keep the minds off of things - Tetsurou put his all into helping Kei, and it showed in everything he did.

Nothing in their relationship was pretend - Kei didn't have to act okay with Tetsurou around. He could be sad or mad or annoyed, and if he ever felt stupid for how he was feeling, Tetsurou helped him justify what he was feeling. He told Kei that it was okay, that Kei was normal despite these feelings - that they were justified and okay.

And somehow, Tetsurou made Kei feel better at a faster rate. And, even though he wasn't very religious, Kei thanked ever higher being their could possibly be for the opprotunity he received when he first met Tetsurou.

*****

It was one of the bad days - Kei had woken up and he automatically knew it was going to be a bad day. He woke up before his alarm clock, and then couldn't get the hot water to work, and then had an absolutley shit day full of classes he couldn't focus in because his mind was everywhere else but there. He was thinking about how stupid everything was, how stupid he was, how bad he wanted to go home and cry because god everything was shit.

He's sure Tetsurou knew; Kei hadn't been texting his boyfriend back because he couldn't on days he felt like this - he was afraid of blowing up on Kuroo because he couldn't control himself, not when he was feeling so much at once that he literally felt numb.

Tetsurou understood - Kei knew that his boyfriend would understand, would always, always understand, because that's how he is, that's how he would always be. He was gentle and caring, even when Kei didn't deserve it, even when Kei was an absolute asshole about nothing at all he understood and he helped, and he was perfect to Kei no matter what.

So, Kei got home on the bad day, dragging his feet through the threshold of he and Tetsurou's shared home, and he managed to take of his shoes and jacket and drop his bag onto the floor through the tears that were forming in his eyes. He forced them back and headed to the kitchen, both his pounding head and growling stomach agreeing that he needed to consume something.

He started by reheating leftovers from the night before - Tetsurou's cooking was always perfect, fresh off the stove or reheated in the microwave, and it was Kei's favorite thing to eat after a long day of classes.

He popped the bowl in the microwave and waited, rather impatiently, for it to finish heating up. Once the microwave beeped he immediately popped it open and went for the bowl.

Stupid move.

The bowl - steamy and hot - was scalding to the touch, and Kei had gotten it off of the counter before it was too hot for him. He dropped the bowl full of food onto the floor, causing the glass bowl to shatter and get everywhere, along with the rice and vegetables that had been inside of the bowl. His fingers and palms were burning, and he couldn't decide if he should fix his injury first or clean up the mess.

His brain said mess - what if Tetsurou got home, saw the mess, and decided that Kei was right? What if he came home, saw a huge mess on the floor and decided that Kei wasn't fit boyfriend material, or even friend material - that Kei wasn't worth his time? He grabbed the broom - as best he could with his burned fingers - and started to clean up the mess.

After only forty-five seconds his hands were hurting too bad for him to hold the broom, and it clattered to the ground from his hands before he was sitting on the floor, knees to his chest and face in his knees.

Then, he cried.

He wasn't sure how long it took for Tetsurou to get home, - it could have been five minutes, could have been an hour - but he just knew that it was long enough for the food to be cold on the floor and his hands to start blistering.

"Kei?" Tetsurou asked, walking quickly into the kitchen to his boyfriend's side. "Hey, you okay? What happened in here?"

Kei looked up at Tetsurou, cheeks wet and eyes red. "I'm stupid, that's what happened." Kei's voice was different from normal - all presence of his usually fake sour personality was gone and replaced with a tone of pure distatse - it was obvious to anybody willing to listen that he wasn't fond of himself in that moment.

Tetsurou realized immediately what that sentence meant, and he was pulling Kei closer to him. "You're not stupid - why do you think that?" The black haired boy started looking at Kei's burns while the blonde talked.

"The day just started off as shit, and then I fucked up in class because my idiot brain wouldn't let me pay attention, and then I embarrassed myself in front of a bumch of kids by tripping. When I got home I figured things would get better, because I could eat and relax and be at peace, but I had to go and be even more stupid and burn the shit out of my hands while going to grab the bowl, and then I made this stupid mess." He looked up at Kuroo, eyes pleading. "Please don't hate me because of the mess, Tetsu, I didn't meant to."

Tetsurou moved his hands from Kei's own to the younger boy's face, and then he was wiping away his tears, forcing on a smile. "Hey, I could never hate you, you know that."

Kei scoffed. "Everyone can hate me, it's not a hard thing to do - just look at me."

The black haired boy smiled for real that time, "when I look at you the only thing I can think is how much I love you." He tilted Tsukki's head up and looked him in the eyes. "The way you see yourself, the things your brain thinks about you, makes me feel no different than I usually do. No matter what I will always, always love you because you're you.

"Your depression, your scrawny physique, the moles on your stomach, the paleness of your skin - everything you hate I love because it makes you who you are, and I'd love you even if you got tan and lost your moles or became fat or got better. I love you for you, and nothing at all is going to change that."

Kei was crying again, because he was far to emotional when it came to days like this, and he could barely get words out past his sobs. "I don't want to feel like this anymore, Tetsurou - I want to be normal."

Tetsurou shook his head at Kei and began helping him move to stand up. "There's no such thing as normal - everybody has their nightmares, has something they don't want, that they're not proud of. Everyone is fucked up, even if only a little Kei, and there is nothing wrong with that."

They made it to the bathroom and Tetsurou sat Kei down on the toilet before grabbing the first aid kit. They were quiet aside from Kei's crying and Tetsurou's small mumbles of 'tell me if it hurts too much' or 'they aren't too bad this time, they should heal nicely.'

Kei cried the entirity of the time Tetsurou was cleaning and bandaging his hands, and even more after that when Tetsurou moved him to their room. He proceeded to help Kei change, pulling off his jeans and t-shirt and putting just a pair of grey sweatpants on him. Tetsurou changed himself after Kei was taken care of, and then he was kissing him - on his scrawny arms and his belly moles and the fading scars on his protruding hip bones.

Tetsurou kissed all of Kei's least favorite places, from his pale thighs to his stupidly blonde hair, and then back down to his lips, which he was sure were way to small. Everytime he said he hated himself, or something about himself, Kuroo countered with an "I love you" or "I love that about you."

It didn't heal him - nothing would ever really heal him - but it helped. He stopped crying eventually, and Tetsurou curled their bodies together under the thin blanket, and Kei started to feel alright. His hands were burning still, and his head was pounding from all of the crying he'd done, but Tetsurou was still there, by his side whispering kind phrases to him whenever he could feel the tears coming on again, and that was all he really needed.

Tetsurou hadn't left him yet- despite his fucked up mind and his sour personality, Tetsurou was still there, shinning like a beacon of hope in the darkness of Kei's brain, and somewhere deep, deep down in his brain Kei knew that Tetsurou would always be there.


End file.
